On 9/11, started playing around with drinking Alkaline water [ www.alkalife.com ]. Drinking 6 or 7 glasses of pH 10-10.5 water made from sodium hydroxide, Alkalife drops (potassium+sodium hydroxide), Essentia pH 9.5 bottled water, baking soda, potassium bicarbonate, etc..Have 3 pH meters. Test urine with Hydrion 345 pH paper (range 6-8), have been keeping urine pH 7.0 to 7.6. It was pH 5.5 or so before starting. Sang Whang teaches that too much acid causes aging and has a couple of books on the subject.

Boy, what a difference. Weight dropping like a rock again, lost about two pant sizes in 5 weeks. Possibly, the extra acid built up from adding more protein from the zone? Sang Whang, alkalife.com, dug up some research which shows people over age 45 (incl me) have their bicarbonate levels drop off, leading to the body having harder time clearing acids from metabolism, so the body stores extra acids in tissues, esp fat cells to keep the acids out of the blood. Take small amounts of bicarbonate, and boom, off comes the fat again, since the acids are gone. The Irvingia / fish oil and the zone are now pushing off the fat since the stored acids are not holding the fat back? Drinking soda pop, incl diet, has huge negative effect on pH balance. One diet Coke at pH 2.5 takes 32 glasses of pH 10 water to neutralize the acid in it.

My blood sugar has dropped from 100-105 to around 85 also.

My thyroid output has also increased, so I stopped my synthroid meds for now 3 days ago.
--ghg

Interesting. Loren Cordain in PaleoDiet (a diet very similar to Zone) talks about importance of alkaline-acid balance. New Atkins Diet is so similar to Zone with a lot of veggies and some fruit.

ghg, thank you for the pain having assembled all this!

As far as I am concerned, I feel there is too much controversy on using (expensive) water ionizers or buying alkaline water and wait for more studies coming up. You might find interesting THIS article ("Ionized" and alkaline water, Snake oil on tap) pointing to some chemistry and making me cautious on the huge marketing hype.

Of course, I try eating a balanced diet, my vegetables, my avocados, using lemon in my drinks, good mineral and tap water, banning sodas etc ...

Albedo,

I have that link also, but I didn't post it. There are similar links on quackwatch.org Not wanting to stir up a controversy, I didn't post those.. I have observed over the years, that anything that interferes with more profit of big Pharma is 'fought' by the establishment (in the United States).. Many things that make us live longer, better our health, reduce medical care are 'bad' for the establishment.
Bill Faloon fought with the FDA (which is made up of 'establishment' guys) for years, and won!

Things like colloidal silver, alkaline water, and even precious metals are 'bad' for the establishment, so they will fight them.. These tend to be 'illegal' to sell on Ebay, and are impeded elsewhere...

When you see things on quackwatch.org and other 'snake oil' type sites they can be split
into two groups:
1) things that really work, but are 'bad' for the establishment
2) things that are really snake oil and don't work or are scams.

The user has to do their own research to figure these out.

ON the alkaline water, myself and friends are now starting to see benefits around week 5 and 6.  Friends are having more energy, losing lots of weight (they are in Irvingia+LEF fish oil and lost lots of weight, then leveled off), and the alkaline water seems to have restarted it. Ones with 'bad knees' are seeing inprovments there also.

I think the water electrolyzers/ionizers are way too expensive/scammy, and way over hyped/MLM'd, etc...Sang Whang bought one in the 90s and had his B.P. drop by week six, so no more BP meds for him after that.. He figured out that the water (or over all body pH) was the key, or more accurately, the body alkaline pH buffers (bicarbonates) are what really was responsible. THe water ionizer hype of 'negative ORP', small cluster size, etc, didn't really do anything, it was just the pH.

A $4,000 water ionizer might make sense for a hospital or a clinic, where lots of water is needed, but for the rest of us, taking potassium/sodium bicarbonate and testing urine with pH paper costs almost nothing.

The next (cost) level up (and more convienient) is to spend about $20/month for alkaline drops or bicarbonate pills from alkalife.com, which is still not too bad.

When I exercise by climbing six flights of stairs, by legs used to hurt on the last flight from lactic acid produced. Immediately after starting alkaline water, that pain went away, probably since excess (stored) acids in the muscles were reduced.

I hear some athletes do what is called 'soda doping' (taking lots of baking soda -
sodium bicarbonate) to help reduce (lactic) acid buildup from the exercise.

Sang Whang says, that over time, one should supplement with 3:1 ratio of potassium:sodium bicarbonates or hydroxides as that is what is typically in the blood.

One can also buy 'calcium hydroxide' which is also called 'pickling lime' and use that.  Calcium hydroxide is not very soluble in water, only about 1.5g dissolves per liter and makes a pH 12.3 solution. A tsp of that into 8 oz of water makes about a pH 10 drinking solution of alkaline water. That is slightly more work than pills or drops or bicarb powders, but would be a great way to get more calcium.
--ghg